


He Doesn't Know That We Know

by questionmark007



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter has the worst luck, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Temporary Blindness, Tony Stark Has A Heart, and also a lot of money to throw at problems, mj is 'kitten who thinks of nothing but murder all day', there's some spideychelle if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 05:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18934081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionmark007/pseuds/questionmark007
Summary: How (most of) the Academic Decathlon team finds out that their classmate is Spider-Man.Shenanigans ensue.Featuring Tony Stark dealing with six smartass teenagers and decathlon team schemes.





	He Doesn't Know That We Know

 

MJ was going to kill him. If whatever monster Peter Parker was off fighting in his absurd red tights with his equally weirdly-dressed team of do-gooders didn’t kill him first, she would do it herself. And she would be justified in it, she was sure. 

 

The courts would take one look at his Academic Decathlon attendance record and general flakiness and let her go free with a sympathetic look and a “really it’s a miracle you didn’t kill him sooner” and they’d be right. 

 

And sure, she’d be down her best competitor and down two friends (because there’s no way Ned would stay her friend if she killed Peter, even if it was a long time coming), but Michelle couldn’t just continue to let Peter’s abysmal attendance record slide. The team deserved better. _She_ deserved better. And at some point, she had to draw a line.

 

“Hey, Michelle… since Leeds and Parker aren’t here, can we skip some of the chem and coding questions?” Flash asked, breaking through MJ’s internal tirade and reminding her that she was in the middle of running the very Academic Decathlon practice that she was annoyed at Peter for missing. 

 

“I think the fact that they’re not here proves we need to run through the material, since we can’t count on our own teammates to show up for practice.” MJ replied, dryly. They were sitting in the Academic Decathlon’s practice room. Most of the team was on the stage, sitting at the desks for a three-on-three scrimmage while she sat in the audience as the questioner. Mr. Harrington had been pulled into a faculty meeting so they were technically unsupervised but MJ wasn’t entirely sure Mr. Harrington really counted as supervision.

 

“In Ned’s defense, he’s _very_ sick. Him even being here would probably get all of us sick, which wouldn’t help us at the meet next week,” Betty piped up earnestly. 

 

MJ appreciated the loyalty Betty seemed to have for Ned, but still couldn’t help with responding: “No defense for Peter?” 

 

Betty rolled her eyes. “We all know better than to ask at this point.” 

 

“That is true,” Charles cut in, dinging the bell (when Harrington is away, the team will play… with the bell for comedic purposes). “Like who built the Pyramids or how Stonehenge came into being, why Peter Parker is such a flake is one of the great mysteries of life.” 

 

“We know who built the Pyramids, Charles. That was in our prep reading like two months ago. Keep up.” Sally snarked. MJ could tell that Charles was about to respond with an equally snarky comment, which would cause the entire practice to dissolve into unproductive bickering and one-liners. It had already happened twice this month and with only two practices to go until their next meet, MJ couldn’t afford to lose control today. As much as she hated to admit she cared about things, decathlon _was_ important to her and she didn’t want to be the captain who flubbed the season where they were the reigning national champions. 

 

“Thank you, Sally. Save that for when we review history in a few minutes but right now, we need to finish our economics review.” 

 

“We’re missing like a third of the team, Jones. I’m just saying we should take it easy today!” Flash tried again. And he was right, sort of, the team was missing two of its nine members. It wasn’t quite a third (for a genius school, Flash was shockingly bad at fractions - unless he was counting Mr. Harrington’s absence as well which MJ doubted as all their teacher sponsor really did was chaperone their meets and assign captains) but still enough absences where trying to practice was a little like trying to have class when several students are all absent at the same time. 

 

But MJ was determined so she leveled a stare at Flash, who to his credit, had the decency to look guilty and went back to his review book. 

 

“If the peanut gallery is done telling me how to captain, we can — Jesus Christ, what now?“ MJ interrupted herself angrily as several phones lit up and started pinging around the room. MJ knew what it was without even looking at her phone though. After the Battle of New York, and the Avenger activity that followed, the city of New York (with the help of Tony Stark) had created its own emergency alert system specifically for superhero battles. As the fighting moved, so would the perimeter alert, telling civilians to stay inside, seek shelter or move to outside of the fighting zone if they could. 

 

When Peter called her to tell her that he would be missing practice today, he had mentioned it was for an Avengers mission so it wasn’t surprising to her that the alert went off. Nor was it surprising that she had now totally lost control of the practice as the team started excitedly talking about the fighting and how they might see an Avenger or two. The universe apparently had something against her and decathlon practice today. 

 

Then Iron Man flew by the practice room window and Charles fell out of his chair, grabbing his phone to try to record what was happening. The students jumped off of the stage and over to the windows. MJ stood up and followed them, her height allowing her to stand behind her classmates but still have a decent view.

 

From their vantage point of looking over the football field, they couldn’t see whatever bad guy the Avengers were fighting but if it was big enough to call the team together, MJ knew it was bad. 

 

“Look at Iron Man’s new suit!” 

 

“Do you think Spider-Man is fighting?” 

 

“Probably! Look! There’s Black Widow’s motorcycle!” 

 

“There’s Falcon! What do you think his wings are made out of?” 

 

A red streak swung by the window and the room lost it for the third time that day. 

 

“SPIDER-MAN!” Flash was on a chair, nose pressed against the window as his enemy in disguise as his hero swung out of view. 

 

MJ turned away from the window and started backing up her belongings. They couldn’t really leave the school with the fighting so close, but MJ knew a lost cause when she saw one and the Powers That Be were not going to allow her to have decathlon practice today no matter how hard she tried. She doesn’t know what she did to piss off the universe like this, but it had to have been something. 

 

After a few moments of stunned silence, marked only by MJ shuffling papers and zipping up her backpack, a sense of unease descended upon the room as the students realized that this might be like the elevator in the Washington monument all over again. Sounds of fighting, crashing and shouting began to filter into the practice room which only added to the nervous energy. With her stuff packed, MJ didn’t have anything else to fiddle with or an outlet for her nervous energy, so she turned back to the window and felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

 

As they watched, an explosion of purple smoke went off, throwing a familiar red suit into the air. Spider-Man came flying toward them, arms flailing and out of control. Fear gripped MJ as she watched and only at the last second did she have the awareness toturn away from the window. 

 

“Get away from the windows! Take cover!” She shouted, ducking under a desk. She heard her teammates following suit, scattering around the room as a huge CRASH shook the room and dust and debris filled the air. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing as her panic levels rose to new heights. She waited for a moment after things seemed to settle to make sure there was no immediate danger if she stood before leaving her hiding place. 

 

The practice room was missing part of the ceiling and a section of wall. The windows also were all cracked and broken. Peter’s crash landing had taken him to the far wall where he laid, surrounded by rubble. The eyes of his mask blinking wildly but otherwise he was still. She was about to run over to check his pulse when she heard Abraham yell. 

 

“Flash!” 

 

MJ whipped around to see Flash, eyes closed, splayed across the floor. Flash had been the closest to the window Spider-Man had entered through and had evidently been struck by debris, judging by the trickle of blood by his temple. Abe was crouched next to him, checking on his friend. 

 

“He’s got a pulse! I — I think he’s just knocked out.” Abe told them, looking shaken. “He’s breathing but I don’t know what else to do.”

 

“Is everyone else okay?” Betty asked, glancing around at everyone. MJ did the same - she _was_ captain so they were her responsibility, especially given that Harrington wasn’t around. 

 

They were all covered in dust and, aside from a few scratches, Flash seemed to be the only one with any noteworthy injury. 

 

Except for Peter. 

 

MJ looked back towards where he was, swallowing about a million quips about how some people will do anything to get out of decathlon practice. 

 

He was sitting up, rubbing the back of his head. Suddenly, he jumped up, clearly panicked about something. He was looking around wildly and muttering to himself. MJ started walking towards him without even thinking about it. She stopped a few feet short of him because the tell-tale whirring of Iron Man’s suit had gotten a lot louder and sure enough, there he was, landing in the middle of the rubble of what was their practice room, closely followed by Scarlet Witch, hands glowing red as she used her magic to fly. 

 

“Kid! Are you ok? Your comms went offline.” Tony Stark’s voice was more robotic coming through the suit but the worry in it was clear. Stark cast them a stern glance that MJ knew meant “shut up or else”. 

 

“Mr. Stark! I can’t see! Karen’s down and I can’t see!” Peter’s voice was more terrified than MJ had ever heard it before and MJ suddenly felt bad about plotting to murder him not ten minutes before. 

 

As he was speaking, Peter reached up to his face, grabbed the mask and pulled it off. MJ didn’t even register the gasps of the classmates behind her because she was too focused on Peter’s face. He had a large bruise on one side of his face and his hair was matted down to his forehead from sweat and being in the mask but it was his eyes that made her want to cry. They were wide with fear as they darted around the room, unseeing. Idly, she wondered if this is what he had looked like when he died on Titan.

 

Stark clunked over to him, putting a suit-covered hand on Peter’s shoulder. His visor lifted, showing the billionaire’s face. 

 

“Kid, you’re gonna be okay. You’re safe.” Tony’s voice was soft. “That explosion must’ve knocked Karen offline.” 

 

“And made me go blind?” Peter ran his hands through his hair as he started breathing more erratically. MJ recognized a panic attack waiting to happen. 

 

“It may be temporary. A sure fire way to get ones enemies to stop their pursuit,” the Scarlet Witch interjected gently. 

 

“We’ll get you back to the compound. Dr. Cho will have you better in no time.” Stark pulled Peter into a side hug as Peter nodded worriedly, eyes still darting around. 

 

“How am I supposed to get back? I can’t see. I don’t even know where I am right now! It smells familiar but I can’t place it.” Peter stuck his nose in the air and took a few exaggerated sniffs, like a dog trying to catch a scent. 

 

“Yeah, kid, we’re in some school. I think it’s yours, actually.” Stark told him, looking around and again giving them a ‘zip it’ look. If it was possible, Peter somehow went even paler. 

 

“ _MY_ school? Oh no, no, no, no!” He grabbed his mask with both hands and quickly pulled it on again. “They’ve got cameras like everywhere. If they find out, I’m Spider-Man, my life is over.”

 

“Oh, come on, Spidey. Don’t be so dramatic,” Stark rolled his eyes but glanced again at the group of decathlon kids, who were watching the events unfold with more interest than MJ had ever seen them have in anything. “But I will check with all the systems and everything to make sure your secret identity stays a secret. I promise.” 

 

“Nat says most of the fighting is over now,” the Scarlet Witch said, a hand to her ear where MJ assumed her comms were located. “Why don’t I take you back up to the compound and let the doctor look at you while Tony stays for damage control?” 

 

Peter nodded, “yeah, okay. Is that okay, Mr. Stark?” 

 

“Of course, kid. Wanda, let me know if you need anything.” Tony took his hand off Peter’s shoulder as he took a step back, allowing Wanda to get closer to Peter. She put an arm around Spider-Man’s shoulders and slowly, they both began to slowly raise off of the ground. 

 

“Oh no, I don’t like this.” Peter said looking around at the ground frantically. MJ could imagine how disconcerting it would be to fly while not being able to see. She was struck, not for the first time, how much Peter must trust the Avengers to put himself in their hands like this.

 

“It’ll be over before you know it,” Wanda said, gliding them towards the gaping hole in the wall. 

 

The room watched as the pair floated outside and out of sight. On any other day, seeing someone fly would have been the most interesting thing to happen at Midtown, unfortunately, it just so happened to coincide with like eight other absurd “is this really happening” things. And somehow this level of absurdity was Peter’s normal.

 

Tony Stark turned to the decathlon team and was met with five slack-jawed faces and MJ, who was already imaging how much milage she could get out of today’s events for her ‘People in Crisis’ sketch series. The Iron Man suit opened up and the billionaire stepped out. He was in jeans and a oil-stained _Metallica_ t-shirt which was as casual as MJ had ever seen him. But given that she mostly saw him on TV in press conferences, that made sense. 

 

Unbeknownst to her, shedding his armor must have been the signal that the team was waiting for because as soon as Stark stepped out of it, he was met with a wall of questions. 

 

“Did the Avengers win?”

 

“What were you fighting against?”

 

“Are the New Accords really better for nations that don’t have as immediate access to superheroes?” 

 

“Is Peter going to be okay?”

 

“Is a gold-titanium alloy really the best metal combination for an exo-suit?”

 

“You’re really letting a teenager be an Avenger?” 

 

Tony Stark looked unprepared for the onslaught of questions, which surprised MJ given how much time he spent being hounded by paparazzi and reporters. But she assumed it was more the line of questions he was unprepared for. He brought his fingers to his lips and let out a loud whistle that effectively shut them all up and left their ears ringing.

 

“In about ten minutes, you’ll be swarmed with members of the Department of Damage Control and probably S.H.I.E.L.D, taking statements and forbidding you from speaking about what you saw today,” Stark leveled a look at them. “Now, honestly, I don’t really care if you tell people what happened or what you saw. As long as you keep Spider-Man’s identity a secret. Believe me, it’d be best for everyone involved if you kiddies kept your mouths shut.” 

 

“Why should we listen to you?” 

 

“Are you trying to threaten us?” 

 

“Is Peter going to be okay?”

 

“So this is Peter’s school?” Tony asked, ignoring their questions and glancing around at the semi-destroyed room. “And you all know him?”

 

“Yeah, we’re part of the Academic Decathlon team he’s on.” Cindy said, crossing her arms.

 

“Right. The ones who were stuck in the Washington Monument.” Tony nodded, looking at each of them. “Which one of you is MJ?” 

 

Five fingers pointed to where MJ stood. She raised her hand weakly. 

 

“Ahh well, Ms. Jones, thank you for being so understanding of why Peter misses so many practices. And which one is “Flash”?” Stark’s voice took a new tone that MJ attributed to the billionaire having heard stories of Flash’s behavior towards Peter.

 

Again, the team pointed as one, this time to Flash’s unconscious body lying a few feet away.   
  
“He dead?”

 

“No, we think he’s just knocked out.” Sally told him. This had to be the weirdest conversation MJ was ever apart of, which was saying something as she frequently ate lunch with Ned Leeds and Peter Parker.

 

“Alright. I’ll be sure to send a medic over to check him out.” Tony clapped his hands together. “So that it? We done? You agree to keep Peter’s identity a secret and we call it a day?” 

 

“What’s in it for us?” asked Charles. Cindy hit him on the arm, incredulously while MJ and Betty frowned at him. Abe snorted out a laugh. “Like not that I want to _out_ Peter or anything. Outing people is never cool but… like… what incentive to we have to keep quiet?” 

 

Tony Stark gave Charles a look that MJ thought was almost amused. 

 

“There’s, what? Six of you here? How does some college tuition sound?” Stark looked around at them, as if waiting for someone to go “oh no! I _wanted_ to go into debt before I joined the workforce”. When that didn’t happen, he continued: “You keep your traps shutabout Pete being Spider-Man and you won’t have to worry about paying for college.” 

 

They stood shocked for a moment. Whatever they were expecting, it wasn’t that. Abe found his voice first: “Just like that, you’re going to pay for all of us to go to college?” 

 

“Well… you all go to this fancy school. You’re clearly smart so it’s gotta be a good investment in our future, right? And we can just say it’s my way of apologizing for destroying part of your school and healing the emotional damage from when Spider-Man belly-flopped on the middle of your nerd practice.” 

 

“ _Decathlon_ practice. We don’t need practice to be nerds.” Charles retorted, then paused looking confused at his own words. “Wait…” MJ closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. In the distance, she could hear sirens wailing as they came towards the battle site.

 

“Moving on…” Tony (MJ figured if he’s paying for her to go to Columbia, she can call him by his first name) looked around at them again. “Do we have a deal?” 

 

“What happens if someone blabs? Is the deal off?” asked Cindy. MJ thought this was a fair question, especially given that it was a minor miracle that neither Ned nor Peter had completely spilled the beans yet. It was really only a matter of time before Peter’s secret identity was public knowledge. 

 

“Yeah, would we all get punished? Or just that one person?” Sally chimed in and was met with several nods and murmurs of agreement.

 

“And can Peter know that we know? Or is this like a ‘it never leaves this room’ deal?” Betty added. “Also, does Ned know? I can’t imagine he doesn’t…” 

 

“Do the webs come out of him or is it like a device?” Abe was clearly missing the point of this Inquisition but MJ cut him some slack - finding out your teammate is a superhero vigilante and keeping the secret will pay for your college is a lot to process in the span of a few minutes. 

 

“What? No. Nope.” Tony shook his head. “You all ask more questions than the kid and I did not sign up for this. One inquisitive teenager is bad enough. You keep your mouths shut, you talk to no one outside of this conversation and we’ll deal with issues as they happen.” He stepped back into the suit, which closed around him. He took a few steps towards the new skylight in the ceiling to make his exit easier.

 

“Is Peter going to be okay?” MJ asked for the third time before she could stop herself. 

 

Even with the armor on, Tony’s shoulders sagged as he turned to look at her. “Yeah. He’ll be fine. He’s a tough kid. Heals quick.” He took off, leaving them to find answers to their questions on their own. 

 

“Did that really just happen?” Charles asked. 

 

“Which part?” MJ snarked.

 

“How is _Peter Parker_ secretly an Avenger?” he continued. 

 

“I don’t think he’s technically an Avenger…” Sally muttered but no one seemed to hear. 

 

“He got bit by a radioactive spider on that field trip to Oscorp a few years ago.” MJ told Charles. Five heads snapped to look at her so quickly, MJ was surprised she didn’t hear anything pop. 

 

“ _You_ _knew_?” 

 

“Of course I knew. I figured it out before he even told me. Pay attention for five seconds. Parker is horrible at keeping secrets. He is the least subtle person on Earth.” 

 

“It does make sense, now that I think about it…” Betty granted, lost in thought. 

 

“It explains why Spider-Man was in Washington the same time we were.” Cindy put in. “How did we not put that together?”

 

“And why Parker’s been a total flake for the last two years.” Abe nodded. “Looks like that’s one of life’s great mysteries solved for you, Charles.” 

 

The sirens were getting louder and MJ knew their time to digest this with each other was limited before Damage Control and S.H.I.E.L.D did as Tony Stark said they would. 

 

“Alright, here’s the plan,” MJ adopted her ‘Captain Voice, which she had developed over the last few months without even meaning to. “Whatever they ask, we tell them the truth entirely. It’s easier to remember that way. The only thing we leave out is Spider-Man taking his mask off - do not call him Peter. Stark stayed to make sure we were okay and to tell us help was on the way, then he took off. Tomorrow morning, we’ll meet before school to talk about this again and I’ll answer whatever questions I can. We tell no one that we know. Sound good?” 

 

They nodded, seeming to feel better with a concrete plan in place. 

 

“I feel like we were just inducted into a secret society.” Charles said, almost to himself.

 

“Do… I mean, do you think we’ll even have school tomorrow?” asked Sally, gesturing to the enormous hole in the school. Which, fair. 

 

“We’ll have school.” MJ said confidently. “This is New York. It takes more than a busted practice room to cancel class.” She got some murmurs of agreement. The last time school had been canceled due to something other than weather (which was also rare in and of itself) was the Battle of New York several years prior, and even then, it only got the borough of Queens out of school for a day, while Manhattan, which was the worst hit, got the week off. 

 

The sound of cars pulling up and people barking orders filtered into the room. 

 

“Are we sure Flash is okay?” Sally asked, looking over at their prone teammate. “If he’s not, and we just left him there while we were dealing with all this other stuff, we’re never going to hear the end of it.”

 

“Also we’ll feel bad for not helping him sooner?” Betty put in, incredulously.

 

Sally shrugged, “Not really. It’s payback for him prioritizing the trophy over us in the elevator.” 

 

“You weren’t even _in_ the elevator when he did that.” Cindy cut in.

 

“Oh…my…God…”, Charles stopped all bickering as his face was that of someone who had just made a remarkable discovery. “Flash is going to be the only one on the team that doesn't know!” He and Abe grinned at each other.

 

“Oh, that’s some high levels of poetic justice, right there,” Abe laughed. They high-fived. “He can’t stand Parker, but he loves Spider-Man. He’d lose his shit!”

 

“Aren’t you both friends with Flash?” Sally asked, looking confused. 

 

“If you can’t laugh at your friends, who can you laugh at?” Charles shrugged. 

 

Further conversation was cut off by Tony Stark’s prediction coming true - the Department of Damage Control and S.H.I.E.L.D. descended upon them along with paramedics, NYFD and New York’s Finest. 

 

Michelle made sure the first paramedics through the door went to Flash while the rest of the team stayed huddled together, seeking safety in numbers. But that only lasted so long, before they were being separated for “debriefing” which MJ thought was just a more annoying way of saying “interrogation”. The DDC and S.H.I.E.L.D had commandeered a few classrooms for the debriefing but MJ wasn’t sure how well that plan went, considering half the team had lawyers for parents and the whole team was made of genius-level smart-asses who were used to being grilled for information. She almost felt bad for the agents. Almost.

 

By the time the agents let MJ and the others go, it was dark out and her phone was blowing up with notifications. It was almost entirely messages from Flash in the decathlon group chat, complaining about his headache and how lame it was that he was unconscious for “the good stuff”. 

 

_If only you knew, Eugene, if only you knew,_ MJ thought as she scrolled through the messages as she got on the subway to go home. She already parted with her mom who had had to return to work. There were a few from Ned, cursing his immune system that everyone else got to meet Iron Man while he was hacking up a lung. 

 

She also had several direct messages from Ned, asking what happened and if she knew if Peter was alright. 

 

_He normally texts me after missions to let me know he’s ok but i haven’t heard anything from him in hours n im worried_ one read. It was timestamped as from an hour ago, so MJ knew there was a good chance Peter had contacted Ned in the intervening time, but she still responded with what she could.

 

_Saw him swing by practice then he crashed practice. literally. he and stark were talking about an issue with his mask. Karen was offline?_

 

The little bubble appeared almost instantly, telling her Ned was responding.

 

_that makes sense_

 

_his phone is hooked up to karen_

 

_karen’s his AI_

 

_also may called and said there was somethign wrong with his eyes? but he’s ok and will be at school tomorrow_

 

It was times like this that MJ was eternally grateful for Ned Leeds. He could ask enough questions to put the rest of the team to shame but he was also quick with answers, even if you didn’t ask. 

 

It took MJ until she got home before realizing she had nothing to do for the rest of the night. No distractions from the events of the day because her backpack (and homework) was still being held for processing. How she managed to keep her phone is beyond her, but just this once, MJ refrained from asking questions for fear it would change the result. 

 

—

 

True to MJ’s prediction, they did in fact have school the next day. And as agreed, the decathlon team (minus Flash, Ned and Peter) met up on the front steps an hour before class started. 

 

“How is everyone this morning?” Betty asked the group. Everyone looked mostly okay. Not shaken or scared but there were some dark circles under some eyes - though MJ wondered the lack of sleep was due to nightmares or coming up with questions about their teammate’s extracurricular activities. 

 

“Can we start asking questions now?” Abe asked, clutching a piece of paper that was entirely covered in scribbles. “I’ve got some questions.” 

 

She spent the next hour being grilled by the five students, answering as best she could. There were a lot of questions that she didn’t have answers to but she also wasn’t sure Peter himself would have answers so she didn’t feel too badly about having to not give an answer.

 

Finally, as other students starting arriving and it became clear class would start with or without them, MJ wrapped the up Q&A.

 

“Okay, now remember,” she began, back in her ‘Captain Voice’. “We know but only Stark and the Scarlet Witch know that we know. We stick to the story we told those government agents and if you feel like you’re about to tell someone, find one of us and we’ll remind you that you’re not allowed to ruin free college for all of us just because you learned something cool.” 

 

“Seriously, if one of you ruins free college for me, no one will find your body.” Cindy threatened, looking specifically at Charles, who looked affronted. 

 

“And Peter can’t know we know, so _act normal_.” MJ finished. The group nodded.

 

Abe stuck his hand in the middle of their circle: “Alright! ‘Act normal around Peter’ on three!” 

 

Laughing, everyone followed suit, putting their hands on top of each other and waited for Abe to give them a count. 

 

“One…two…three!” 

 

“ACT NORMAL AROUND PETER” they chanted, laughing. They broke up and headed their separate ways. 

 

—

 

MJ didn’t have class with Peter until second period English and by the time class started, he still wasn’t there. It wasn’t until twenty minutes or so into the class when he finally came in, handing the teacher a note before heading to his seat, which was next to her. 

 

“Eye doctor?” Mr. Dell said, reading the note. Peter nodded, nervously, pulling out his books, so he missed Cindy and Betty giving each other significant looks. Mr. Dell shrugged and went back to droning about how Romeo and Juliet was a masterpiece, playing idly with his flying pig themed tie. 

 

MJ kicked Peter’s desk, getting his attention. He looked at her, questioningly. 

 

‘ _You okay?’_ she mouthed. He nodded, flipped his notebook open to a fresh page and wrote _‘Ned told you?’_

 

To which she nodded so he started scribbling again: _May and Mr. Stark wanted to run a few more tests. All clear._

 

MJ nodded again and settled in to her chair. 

 

When the bell rang, they gathered up their stuff, which for MJ just consisted of a notebook and her lunch since her stuff was still with the government (she hoped whatever government goon they made look through her stuff got a kick out of her sketch book or learned something from her notebook of commentary on the system). 

 

She followed Peter to the door where they met up with Cindy and Betty. MJ tried to catch their eye to remind them to BE COOL but to no avail. 

 

“Are you okay, Peter?” Cindy asked. 

 

“What? Yeah I’m fine.” Peter looked at MJ as if to see if she had context for this seemingly out of the blue question but MJ shrugged. Someone had to play it cool.

 

“We just heard when Mr. Dell said you were at the eye doctor and wanted to make sure your eyes were okay.” Betty added helpfully. 

 

“O—Oh…” Peter still looked confused, but MJ knew he wasn’t a naturally suspicious person, particularly when he knew the people behaving weirdly so MJ wasn’t worried their cover was about to be blown. “Well, thanks for your concern, but it was just a check up. I’m all good.” 

 

“Did anyone else notice Dell’s tie?” MJ cut in, giving Cindy and Betty a quick glare. The topic change got them into chemistry before Cindy and Betty parted ways with her and Peter to go to their own seats. 

 

“That was weird, right?” Peter asked her, voice low, as they sat down. “Them asking me about my eyes?” 

 

“People caring about your wellbeing isn’t weird, Parker,” MJ told him, silently cursing. Of course _today_ would be the day he finally gets observant. 

 

Their conversation was cut off as class began and they didn’t have time for passing notes as Mr. Cobbwell had a ‘zero distractions’ policy in his class. Then they separated for fourth period (where she got several texts from a new group chat that Abe had named ‘the Spidey Six’) before meeting up again for lunch in the cafeteria, joined by Ned. 

 

MJ wasn’t entirely sure when she started sitting _with_ them instead of just _near_ them but even she would grudgingly admit it was a nice change to sit and talk with people sometimes rather than read. Even on days like today when she was desperately trying to play it cool and also keep everyone else cool too. 

 

“I just don’t know why people are so concerned.” Peter was saying to Ned as he sat down across from her. “People go to the eye doctor all the time.”

 

“I don’t know, dude. We got to school with a bunch of geniuses. We’re a weird bunch.” his friend replied. MJ made a mental note to text the Spidey Six about what ‘acting normal’ meant but otherwise let the conversation go. “Maybe its because Flash is mad that he was knocked out while everyone else got to meet Iron Man and they feel bad you missed it, too?” 

 

“They met Iron Man?” Peter asked, looking frantically between Ned and MJ. 

 

“Have you not been reading the decathlon group chat?” Ned asked his best friend. “It’s all anyone is talking about! Mainly Flash, but still."

  
“No, I put it on mute like a week ago when Flash was blowing it up with those pictures of his dad’s new car.” 

 

“Well, its blowing up again, dude! About how they met Iron Man yesterday when Spider-Man crashed into the school.” 

 

“What?” Peter was deathly quiet and MJ figured that, all things considered, eighteen hours is a pretty good run for six high schoolers to keep a secret in the digital age. Especially when Flash was clearly suffering from FOMO. 

 

“Dude, you know you landed in the practice room, right? You saw all those tarps and stuff on it this morning.” Ned began and Peter nodded slowly. “Well the team was in there practicing when it happened. No one got hurt. Flash got knocked out but that’s it. It wasn’t even a concussion.”

 

“Wait so you all were in the room where I crashed?” Peter looked at her, his face pale and looking nervous, though not as nervous as he had yesterday.

 

“Technically —“ MJ began, trying to think a way out of this but to no avail.

 

“There’s no ‘technically’ here, Michelle.” Peter cut her off, fiercely. MJ suddenly understood why criminals were afraid of him. “You were either in the room or you weren’t. And you were. Because it was the practice room around the same time as decathlon practice. I could’ve killed someone! I—-Oh, God! I took my mask off!” 

 

“You did.” MJ confirms because…well… at this point, why deny it? 

 

“The whole team knows?” Peter asked miserably.

 

“Not Flash,” Ned said helpfully. 

 

“But yes. Flash and Harrington don’t know. Everyone else was surprisingly cool about it.” MJ told them.

 

“Really?”

 

“No, several of their minds were blown and I think Cindy is annoyed she didn’t put it together sooner, but they’re being cool about it now and that’s what matters.” MJ smirked. “Or they’re trying to be cool about it.” 

 

“So they’re all asking if my eyes are okay because—“

 

“Because we saw you freak out about how you were temporarily blind and it left an impression.” 

 

“And no one was going to tell me you all know?” Peter had evidently cycled through the five stages of grief on his secret identity pretty quickly. 

 

“Yeah, because Stark told us to.” MJ popped a carrot in her mouth. “We made it less than twenty-four hours but that’s about how long you kept it, right Ned?” 

 

“I’m not sure we should compare what happened there with this…” Ned said slowly. “I just told the whole gym class Peter knew Spider-Man. I didn’t reveal the secret then force those people into secrecy.” 

 

“How did he do that, by the way?” In MJ’s opinion, Peter was focusing on the wrong things, but who was she to judge? 

 

“He bought our secrecy with the promise of a full ride to college.” 

 

“He offered to pay for college? He hasn’t offered to pay for my college!” Peter was affronted and again MJ wanted to ask him if he was focusing on the right things, but decided a different route was best:

 

“Ask him about it, I’m sure you can work something out.” She ate another carrot and stole a pretzel from Ned. “Also, you should offer to do a Q&A with the Spidey Six. They have a lot of questions about your powers that I couldn’t answer.”

 

“‘Spidey Six’?” Ned cut in before Peter could get a word out. 

 

“Yeah, its what Abe decided we should be called. The six students who know Spider-Man’s identity,” MJ shrugged. 

 

“ _Seven,”_ Ned insisted, pointing at himself.

 

“Eight,” Peter raised his hand as well.

 

“You don’t count!” Ned scoffed. “But we need to make a new group chat, with _all of us_ , and we’ll call it the Spidey Squad” And he pulled out his phone, presumably to create the chat himself.

 

“Ned,” Peter sighed. “Is that really the best idea?” 

 

“Yes,” was the immediate response. “I’ve kept this secret for too long, dude. I need to be able to talk about it.” 

 

“You’ve got me and MJ!” 

 

“You don’t count, and MJ doesn’t fangirl” Ned said bluntly. Which was fair. “I need this, dude. Let me have this.” 

 

Peter rolled his eyes and went back to his lunch.

 

“Hey, Parker.” MJ spoke up, softly. Ned’s attention stayed on his phone but Peter’s eyes found hers. “I’m glad you didn’t die yesterday.” 

 

He ducked his head. “Really? I thought for sure you’d be mad at me for missing practice again.” 

 

“Oh I was.” She told him. “I was planning your murder and everything.” 

 

“Yeah?” Peter laughed. “What was coming to mind?” 

 

She smiled and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Well…” 

**Author's Note:**

> This was really fun to write! I hope you all enjoyed it and I'm even thinking about a part 2 from Peter's POV...


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